Readings from 2018 to 2020

Continuing on from 2016 and 2017, I have collected here a short summary of books I read (roughly) from 2018 to 2020.

Capitalist Realism: Is there no alternative (by Mark Fisher) : This book – to put it in one sentence – deals with the saying that “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of Capitalism”. Mark Fisher analyzes different contemporary cultural and social movements from the lens of what he calls Capitalism Realism i.e. the total hegemony of capitalism over contemporary imagination. He dissects how ideology is embedded seemingly innocuous things and beliefs. It is surprising how he manages to squeeze so many thought provoking ideas in just 100 pages, along with many interesting movie recommendations.

One, no one, and a hundred thousand (by Luigi Pirandello): This is by far the most claustrophobia inducing book I have ever read – if that word could be used to describe a book. The protagonist starts with a simple question: “Who am I?”. But then in his quest of finding an “essentialist” answer he is driven to paranoia as he becomes hyper-aware of his own being removed from his own thoughts. This leads to a dissonance between physical body and metaphysical being, an incongruity between mind and brain.

Challenger Deep (by Neal Shusterman): The book takes us into the mind of a child struggling with mental illness. We travel with him as he constructs a reality of his own which subsumes the real world. We also get to interact with other patients as our protagonist meets them in the mental care institution.

Understanding Power (by Noam Chomsky): The book details several US foreign policy misadventures and the fallout from them. It is a good read if one wants to look into some of the lesser known conflicts and US’ role in it.

Kulyaat e Rashid (by Nazr Muhammad Rashid): Collected works of modern Urdu poet N. M. Rashid. I also posted in detail here about his style and topics along with excerpts from his most well-known poems. While Jaun Elia has captured mainstream attention, Rashid is yet to be explored.

Dragon on Our Doorstep (by Pravin Sawhney and Ghazala Wahab): The ‘dragon’ in the title refers to the People’s Republic of China and the doorstep is Indian mainland. Both countries share a long border along the Himalayas and have several territorial disputes. Authors put those disputes in historical context and walk the reader through several military and diplomatic stand-offs it has caused thus far, with some proposals on how to manage the threat going forward.

A Conspiracy Against the Human Race (by Thomas Ligotti): The author’s main premise is that “Living is not alright”. In an almost casual way he explores the idea of voluntary extinction and why that might be not so bad.

A Primate’s Memoir (by Robert Sapolsky): This book summarizes authors experiences collected over years observing a group of baboons in the Kenyan wilderness. Interspersed in the narrative are also the accounts of him dealing with a different culture in Africa. Author’s genius lies in how he vividly presents each individual baboon as a complete character with intricate personalities and stories.

Men Without Women (by Haruki Murakami): This is a collection of short stories where the protagonist in each story deals with the loss of important women in their lives.

Sword of Destiny (by Andrzej Sapkowski): Collection of short stories set in The Witcher universe

The Last Wish (by Andrzej Sapkowski): Collection of short stories set in The Witcher universe

Asimov’s Guide to the Bible (by Isaac Asimov): Asimov’s commentary on The Bible. It covers both the Old and the New Testament. He provides historical context to the events being discussed in the books of Bible. Also included is meta-commentary on Jewish traditions, cultures, customs, and history. In Asimov’s own words, he’s not writing this as a historian, so his commentary consists of mostly informed speculation. Interesting read nevertheless as it brings together the long, interesting, and tumultuous history of the Jewish tribes and then the Christendom.

Philosophy and Real Politics (by Raymond Geuss): Author argues against the interpretation of politics as applied ethics and posits that the pursuit of an ideal moral / ethical theory of which politics would be an instantiation is not a productive approach. Instead we should focus on actual real people and their motives, needs, and existing power structures to make politics more in line with “really existing” world.

Chairman Xi Remakes the PLA (by National Defense University, US Dept. of Defense): The white-paper mainly deals with analyzing the 2015 Chinese Military Reforms taken up by Chinese premier Xi Jinping. It details how changes have been made at every level from personnel to kinetic and non-kintenic deterrence as well as complete rethinking for war doctrines and restructuring of military resources into Theater Commands and implications thereof. Authors also compare it to previous military reforms in Chinese history and how those were different from current goals, where they failed or succeeded.

Everything is Obvious Once You Know It (by Duncan Watts): This can be considered a spiritual sequel to Thinking Fast and Slow with a focus on social sciences. Author has tried to dispel the myth that social science only discovers ‘obvious’ facts unlike hard sciences like Chemistry, Physics etc.

The Three Body Problem (by Liu Cixin): Earth makes first contact with an alien civilization known as the Trisolarans. Far from friendly, the newly discovered cosmic neighbors are on a genocidal quest to colonize the solar system and eliminate humans. To be fair to them, this is not completely out of spite but rather from a necessity as Trisolarans’ home planet is subject to the chaotic whims of a tri-star system whose chaotic motions (due to inherent chaos of three body system) make their planet uninhabitable. Thus they’re looking for a stable start system to save their civilization.

The Dark Forest (by Liu Cixin): A sequel to The Three Body Problem. In this book humanity deals with impending invasion and conjures up several plans to either save the planet or if that fails to evacuate in a mass interstellar exodus. Liu Cixin intricately explores several philosophical, political, social, and moral dilemmas that result from this unusual situation.

Death’s End (by Liu Cixin): A sequel to The Dark Forest. The book continues as humanity deals with the aftermath of invasion. Without spoiling too much, I can say that the book explores “there’s always a bigger fish” phenomenon at the cosmic scale. It also explores the human psychology as it deals with infinite vastness of universe in time and space.